A few months before the covid pandemic started in 2020, a Swiss friend of my Brighton friend visited her, while I was also there, and told us of her husband's dementia and his restlessness. The conversation developed into ways of maybe calming him, as he was quite agitated. The topic of dementia mittens came up. They are like knitted mittens in bright colours and decorated with things like ribbons and buttons for the person to fiddle with. I was asked if I might be able to make one for her. I researched what they looked like online and even found a pattern to work to, so I set to and knitted my very first one which I then sent on to the friend in Switzerland in early 2020.
Once the covid pandemic struck, I was housebound during the lockdowns on my own. Life was very boring apart from the occasional walk around the block. Kay had moved out and was was placed at the expense of the NHS in the Holiday Inn at Gatwick (see here) close to the hospital where she worked so as not to pass any hospital covid germs on to me as she was working in Intensive Care with dying Covid patients and I was classed as "vulnerable". So, in my newly acquired loneliness, I started knitting more dementia mittens. I ordered the wool and ribbons and other decorations online and would sit watching TV, knitting away. It helped me feel less guilty about watching too much TV. It would take about a week to knit one just in the evenings and then decorate it. To start with I would hand them over to local care homes or charity shops and before I knew it I had a production line going!
In recent years I have made them for the foodbank charity shop, where I volunteer, and they have been flying off the shelves with requests from customers for more. To date I must have knitted well over 400 of them. Here are pictures of some of them for you to get an idea of what they look like. You can insert your hands inside the muffs and there are ribbons and buttons inside too to fiddle with. I have been told that hospitalised dementia patients use them too to avoid fiddling with catheters on their hands or arms and pulling them out. Ouch!
 |
| some recent ones |
 |
| Some of the many accumulating during the covid lockdown |
11 comments:
They call those Fiddle Mitts here and are very popular in the care homes.
I used to call them Fiddle Muffs and was told that sounded rude!! Not easy when you are trying to sell them in a charity shop, as we might get prosecuted against the Trades Description Act. Haha.
Never heard of these mittens before! I had a period of knitting in my 20s but quit because of neck-arm problems. (Not primarily caused by that activity - but not helping...)
They're relatively easy to make and you can change colour and stitch styles as you please.
They're very attractive.
It sounds like a very good idea. I wonder what my Dad would have made of them. When he was in hospital, he'd try to rip out whatever tubes and needles they had put into him; sometimes he succeeded before someone could stop him, and then they put "boxing gloves" on his hands. He hated them, and so did we, but he simply couldn't understand that he had to leave those tubes alone.
Thank you, Pam. It all helps to keep someone with dementia occupied and attracted.
So I have heard. Dementia patients get very restless and if they see catheters and tubes, they want to pull them out. Hopefully these keep them distracted and occupied.
The mitts look lovely and you’ve prompted a memory, my mum was always knitting and every year she knitted an arran jumper or cardigan for me and my two brothers for our summer holidays, always in the UK, so much needed.
I think knitting is less common amongst young people now as they can buy woolen items from shops cheaper than buying the wool and making it themselves.
Post a Comment